You’ve heard about Google Ads as a way of promoting your business and reaching more customers. But how does the bidding system for Google Ads actually work? And what strategies do businesses adopt to ensure their Google Ads campaigns increase traffic, views, and conversions?
Let’s delve into the different Google Ads bidding strategies and how they may help your healthcare business.
For expert assistance with Google Ads and your digital marketing strategy, contact our team at practiceedge today.
What is Google Ad Bidding?
Google Ad bidding is an auction-like process that helps determine the placement of ads in Google search results and across Google platforms.
Advertisers create an ad and set a bid, which is the maximum amount they are willing to pay for metrics including each click (CPC), thousand impressions (CPM), or conversion (CPA). Each ad is also given a quality score based on its relevance, quality, and landing page user experience. Together, the bid amount and the quality score help decide a factor called the ad rank, which dictates where that ad will appear across Google platforms.
The auction happens every time a user performs a Google search or visits an affiliated website. Within milliseconds, Google evaluates all eligible ads based on their bids and quality score and assigns them an ad rank. The ads with a higher ad rank receive a better position and are more likely to be viewed and clicked on by potential customers.
What Are the Goals for Google Ads?
Advertisers have a range of decisions to make when setting up a new ad campaign on the Google Ads platform. They have to decide on a campaign type, from search ads to video ads, as this determines the format of the ad and potential locations. They also have to choose a bidding strategy.
But before they make these decisions, it helps to have an idea of their overall goals. The goals for your business may include:
- Increasing traffic to your website. More clicks from potential customers will probably be a key metric for your campaign, making any sort of cost-per-click (CPC) bidding a great strategy.
- Generating leads through your website. Effective strategies may include maximum clicks, to drive more traffic; maximum conversions, to get as many conversions as possible for your budget; or target cost-per-acquisition (CPA), where your bids are automatically adjusted to achieve a cost-per-lead goal or other target.
- Building brand awareness and visibility. With impressions as a key metric, you may use bidding strategies including target impression share and cost-per-thousand viewable impressions (vCPM).
- Increasing views and interactions for video ads. This can be done with bidding strategies including cost-per-view (CPV) or cost-per-thousand-impressions (CPM).
What are Bidding Strategies and the Different Types of Bidding Strategies?
Bidding strategies are methods used by advertisers in Google Ads to achieve their campaign goals and receive the best results for their bids.
When Google Ads launched in 2000, the only bidding strategy available was manual bidding, which gave advertisers full control of their ad campaigns without any smart solutions. But close to 25 years later, the platform has evolved and now multiple bidding strategies are available.
Let’s explore the five main groups of bidding strategies and some of the specific strategies they cover.
1. Manual Bidding
Manual bidding allows you to adjust your bids and allocate budget on any level you want, including based on specific keywords, audiences, locations, or device types. It’s ideal for advertisers who want granular control over their campaigns or perhaps have a limited budget. The most common form of manual bidding is manual CPC (cost-per-click) bidding.
2. Automatic Bidding
Automated bidding is a bidding strategy that puts Google in the driver’s seat. First, Google establishes the likelihood of your ad receiving a click or conversion. Then it uses AI to analyse a range of signals, from a person’s search history to their gender and age, to decide on a final bid.
It’s a great approach for advertisers who have a larger budget and may be short on time to manage campaigns. Many automated bidding strategies are available, including the maximise clicks strategy, the target impression share strategy, and the target CPM strategy (including vCPM and CPV).
3. Semi-automatic Bidding
4. Smart Bidding
Smart bidding refers to strategies that use machine learning to optimise bids for conversions or conversion value at every auction. It is a type of automated bidding, but stands out from other automated strategies by focusing on conversion-based outcomes (instead of on clicks, impressions, or conversions), and by utilising more nuanced algorithms to consider a wide range of user signals.
Like automated bidding, smart bidding saves advertisers time and provides them with more accurate campaign predictions. Smart bidding strategies include the maximise conversions strategy, the maximise conversion value strategy, the target cost-per-action (tCPA) strategy, and the target return-on-ad-spend (tROAS) strategy.
5. Portfolio Bidding
Google Ads Bidding is a Breeze With practiceedge
Not sure which bidding strategies are right for your medical or healthcare business? At practiceedge, we can put you at ease with an ads management program that draws on over a decade of Google Ads experience and takes into account the unique needs of your industry and audience.
For expert assistance on your bidding strategies and all things Google Ads, get in touch with our friendly team at practiceedge today.
